Critical Path: How to Review Videogames for a Livinghttp://criticalpathbook.com
A book by Dan AmrichTue, 08 Sep 2015 06:57:07 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.5.4MP3: Was I Wrong? Revisiting Controversial Reviews PAX East 2014 panelhttp://criticalpathbook.com/mp3-was-i-wrong-revisiting-controversial-reviews-pax-east-2014-panel/
http://criticalpathbook.com/mp3-was-i-wrong-revisiting-controversial-reviews-pax-east-2014-panel/#commentsMon, 05 May 2014 03:17:58 +0000http://criticalpathbook.com/?p=565

This year at PAX East 2014, I banded together with Susan Arendt from Joystiq and Chris Kohler from Wired Gane|Life to revisit some a few of the game reviews that haunt us — stuff that elicited such a strong reaction that we had to stop and wonder if we’d done the right thing. Here’s the description of the panel and its purpose:

Was I Wrong? Revisiting Controversial Reviews

Every game critic has That One Review that haunts them – too low, too high, or just plain unpopular in the eyes of the public. It’s enough to make the writer wonder if they really made a mistake or if the rest of the world is just nuts. A gathering of game reviewers past and present revisit That One Review to talk about their processes, what they did to weather the storm of controversy, the fallibility of human beings versus the assumed infallibility of the press, and ultimately how to handle criticism of criticism.

I’ve finally uploaded the audio from this panel, so if you couldn’t be there in person, you can still hear all about it. I’d include the PowerPoint but it’s embarrassingly simplistic and ugly, because I made it.

In any case, the file is available for download here. There are a few four-letter words in this panel, so parental guidance is suggested. Share and enjoy!

]]>http://criticalpathbook.com/mp3-was-i-wrong-revisiting-controversial-reviews-pax-east-2014-panel/feed/1Up Up Down Down Left WRITE — available nowhttp://criticalpathbook.com/up-up-down-down-left-write-available-now/
http://criticalpathbook.com/up-up-down-down-left-write-available-now/#commentsMon, 05 Aug 2013 17:00:20 +0000http://criticalpathbook.com/?p=559

Nathan Meunier‘s Up Up Down Down Left WRITE comes out today. Nathan has freelanced for more than 30 major gaming outlets over the years, and his book focuses specifically on the full-time freelance career path. Nathan goes further into how to sustain yourself as a business than I did in Critical Path. For instance, I didn’t even cover the realities of self-employment taxes or anything like that; I focused more on the hows and whys of the writing itself. Nathan covers that too, of course, but I think his insight into how to pay the rent at the same time will be particularly valuable. If you are thinking of going full-time freelance, I would recommend reading this before you do. Plus, the book’s foreword is written by my ex-boss and my brother from another mother, Andy Eddy.

Hey, it sure can’t hurt to have more advice from people who have been where you want to be. It’s out now for Kindle as well as print, and a sample chapter is here if you want a taste.

Congratulations on the launch, Nathan! Now let’s team up and write a book about how to write a book about getting a job writing about videogames!

In college, I took several writing courses, one of which was called Humorous Writing. Every style I wrote — parody, nonsense, what have you — turned out to be satire, according to the professor. So I believe in its power; when I see satire done well, it can be the most incisive forms of criticism out there.

Something Awful often mixes satire with snark and sarcasm; I think those are less world-changing and more self-indulgent. But Dennis Farrell utterly nails the satire in If Films Were Reviewed Like Video Games, wherein he breaks down World War Z in the style of a bad — but distressingly typical — game review.

I know you get why it’s funny, but just because I’m me, let me completely kill Dennis’ joke and openly articulate the flaw: He’s reviewing the mechanics of how the game was made, instead of reviewing the experience of movies, which is the whole reason any of us attend them. A film is judged on what it makes us feel — is it engaging? Is it moving? Is it fantastic spectacle? Whether it’s a tense, personal drama or a sci-fi popcorn flick, will we get lost in its fictional world for two hours? Because if the review adequately explains that it is and you will, chances are good we want to see that movie. That’s what we want from a film, and it’s what we want from a film review.

Games can do all those things I just mentioned, and can arguably do them better. You’re an active participant in how a game’s engaging, moving, fantastic spectacle plays out. And yet, because the game is interactive — because it has mechanics, which films, books, TV shows, or albums do not — a lot of reviewers get tripped up and only focus on those mechanics. Yes, it’s important to note when they’re bad — poor control can ruin the rest of the experience — but if they’re good, chances are high that the reviewer will want to talk about the experience instead, which is what the reader really wants to know about. Like good sound in a movie, the mechanics of a game become invisible when they’re doing their job.

No responsible or trusted (or perhaps simply sane) film reviewer would summarize the dialogue by saying “A lot of people talk in it and things keep happening.” They wouldn’t say a film wasn’t good or bad because of its run time. They wouldn’t demonize a film for telling a different story in its sequel or expanding a successful formula; in fact, they’d more likely criticize it if it didn’t. Yet you see those kinds of judgments in game reviews all the time — “this sequel doesn’t do what the first one did” is as common as “this sequel is too similar to the last game.” And if calling out a specific type of camera strikes you as silly, consider how often you’ve seen a game engine name-checked, with the implication that its use makes a game inherently superior. Ridiculous, right? Right?

This whole article — from the assumptive yet incongruous score in the beginning to technical obsessions to personal biases and illogical expectations of personalized content — is a humorous warning to heed. Just be thankful it’s presented with a smirk by a stranger on the internet instead of with a scowl from your editor!

]]>http://criticalpathbook.com/satire-its-funny-because-its-true/feed/0How to avoid being a journalisthttp://criticalpathbook.com/how-to-avoid-being-a-journalist/
http://criticalpathbook.com/how-to-avoid-being-a-journalist/#respondWed, 01 May 2013 18:51:17 +0000http://criticalpathbook.com/?p=536

If you’ve read my book (or at least page 22), you know I use the word “journalist” very carefully when describing game reviewers. I see no shame in the titles “reviewer” or “critic” whatsoever, but I feel “journalist” is pushing it if all you do is evaluate software. But over my career, I did a fair amount of journalism too — writing features, reporting news, finding facts, researching information, interviewing people, assembling all those pieces into a larger, digestible whole for the reader. I encourage game review as a first, accessible step into a career in the games media, but those advanced skills will give you better opportunities in the long run. If you’re interested in doing more than reviews, that advanced role comes with extra responsibilities.

Up here on my soapbox, I can’t help but notice some people who are not taking those responsibilities seriously. Getting hits on your blog or views on your video does not make you a journalist, yet it seems there’s a fair amount of folks who confuse attention with credibility.

Case in point, with a personal twist: At my day job, I answer gamer questions, and someone wrote in to ask if Activision would be re-releasing No One Lives Forever. That game was developed by Monolith and published by Fox Interactive. A few years later, Vivendi bought Fox Interactive and, later, Activision, so it’s a logical assumption that Activision might have the IP. I did some digging at work and could not find proof that NOLF was still at Activision; several properties were sold off around the time of the big merge, so it’s certainly possible that someone made an offer for it. It ultimately came down to “it looks like we don’t have it; if we did, we probably would have put it on GOG by now.” For good measure I asked a friend at the NOLF developer, Monolith (now a WB studio) and — while it is not strictly his job to know such things — he, too, couldn’t confirm the fate of the franchise.

So, my duty is done. I replied honestly that I don’t believe Activision has the rights so I don’t think you’ll see anything NOLF-related coming from my side of the fence.

Now, at this point, my old media spider-sense got tingling. Surely someone owns it, right? It didn’t just disappear and it’s likely not in the public domain this quickly. Maybe Activision does have it after all; maybe Monolith has it and my contact simply wasn’t in that loop; maybe another publisher bought it and is quietly sitting on it for its own reasons. Fan-favorite cult IP goes missing? Sounds like a newsworthy story to me, and there’s already some information to go on.

Instead, to my disappointment, nobody picked up the trail. The bulk of the reporting consisted of the embedding or quoting of my video and saying “Activision doesn’t know where NOLF is.” Worse, some outlets incorrectly spun that as “Nobody knows who owns NOLF.”

Can I impolitely suggest that someone would know who owns NOLF if you got off your ass and did some journalism? This sloppy, inaccurate reporting and general lack of motivation to dig deeper is a core frustration for me right now. Lazy hearsay should not pass as media coverage. We need more people doing the work and thinking for themselves.

I see coverage falling into three categories lately, from most engaged to laziest:

Investigation
Someone realizes there is information to be found, research to be done, truth to be uncovered and comprehended and reported. Someone goes and gets this story — in this NOLF example, a writer or editor starts calling their contacts at companies to try to track down the location and ownership of what was once a major franchise, and one that still has a passionate fan base. There will be blind alleys; there will be “no comment”s. This is why we call it work.

Comprehension
Some folks aren’t going to do the research — maybe they don’t know how yet — but they will at least listen to the video and understand what it says. At the very least, a reporter with comprehension will present what they have heard factually and accurately, perhaps adding their own thoughts for further discussion with their audience. In terms of motivation and fact-finding, they’ve missed the bus, but simply by understanding what a bus looks like now, maybe they will catch the next one when they recognize it. However, a responsible, critically thinking reporter will not say “Nobody knows where NOLF is” when the actual information was “I don’t think Activision has it.” This akin to hearing “The pizza I ordered is not ready yet” and concluding “That pizzeria is out of business.” Journalism is not a game of Telephone.

Repetition/Reiteration
This requires the least amount of effort, and it’s what many smaller outlets (and some larger outlets) often do: They repeat what they hear. It’s certainly easy to listen to someone speak and say “here’s what they said,” and it requires little to no ambition. Parroting might be newsworthy when it comes to a politician speaking, or even a game’s fact sheet when people want to know specific details or turns of phrase, but in a case like the NOLF question, it’s a sure sign that the writer has no reporting instincts whatsoever. They should not be calling themselves journalists.

And perhaps they don’t. I do realize that some bloggers and YouTubers do not consider themselves journalists — they are seeking attention, not responsibility — but at that point, they’re just adding noise, which helps nobody. It doesn’t even help themselves, when potential audience members figure out (and they will) that these not-journalists have nothing new to say, nothing to add to the conversation. Why listen to an echo when you can seek out a source?

I believe a lot of folks take the easy path because they want the easy hits. But real reporters don’t go for the easiest path all the time. People who make names for themselves in games media must earn the respect attributed to their names by all those things that define journalists: fact-finding, investigation, analysis. A lot of hopefuls miss that part, I think — they just see media members with status and access and they want that too. If you want that, no matter how meager, you need to find facts instead of simply repeating a lack of them.

By the criteria I’m offering here, there are definitely people out there doing it “right.” But I think too many inexperienced writers and site editors (and subsequently readers) are settling for less. When news breaks or information is released, I’d encourage you to think critically about what you hear, see, and say. With no responsibility comes no credibility.

]]>http://criticalpathbook.com/how-to-avoid-being-a-journalist/feed/0GamesRadar’s 10 Great Books That Will Teach You About Gaming Historyhttp://criticalpathbook.com/gamesradars-10-great-books-that-will-teach-you-about-gaming-history/
http://criticalpathbook.com/gamesradars-10-great-books-that-will-teach-you-about-gaming-history/#respondWed, 01 May 2013 00:28:22 +0000http://criticalpathbook.com/?p=542

Critical Path got a nice shout-out from GamesRadar for those of you looking to expand your videogame library — that is, not your library of games, but your library of books about videogaming. “Even if you don’t currently plan on joining the freelancer ranks,” writes Henry Gilbert, “his detailed approach to reviews will have you thinking more critically of the games you play every day.” Thanks Hank!

I just got back from PAX East, which is always a blast. I sold a few books, but only brought a handful compared to previous years. I am wondering if it might be worth doing a booth at PAX Prime. I’ll do some research.

However, I just got a fresh shipment of books today, and I will be bringing them to WonderCon Anaheim, where I’m speaking on a panel about how to get a job in the games industry. The panel takes place at 5:30pm in Room 300DE. Come and say hi and/or bring your copy of the book; I am happy to sign it (or Authorgraph the digital ones). And if you have been putting off getting a paperback…here’s your chance!

Critical Path is now officially one year old. It’s comforting to say “it’s been out for a year” after saying “it’s been in the works for eight years.” One day it will be out longer than it took to create, and by that time, I will probably say “I wrote a book? I don’t remember writing any book.”

Sales have been pretty good. I’m not getting rich, and I’m not topping any sales lists — but it was not an abject failure, I got some great feedback from readers, and considering I self-published a first-person book on a niche topic for a niche audience, I’m certainly happy to see that it’s found its way into the hands (and hopefully heads) of as many people as it has. And I am grateful on a daily basis for the word-of-mouth recommendations that I see on social media. I am hoping these will continue as more and more people discover and enjoy the book. My dream has always been for this to become a standard work on the topic — maybe even a textbook or part of a curriculum’s reading list.

So while I still have challenges as an author, you still have challenges as a reader! I have always been a puzzle nerd, so I buried two easter eggs in the book — all editions, print and digital. To date, only one person has told me that they found both. I consider the first egg to be fairly easy — and a handful of folks have reported that they spotted it — but the other egg is apparently far more difficult than I expected it to be. And that tricky one has a better payoff: A hidden chapter. All the info you need to find and read this hidden chapter is in the book itself. Look closely, think critically, and have fun.

If you’ve read the book, you may recall me discussing the magazine shorthand “TK” as placeholder text for something that is “to come” in the production of that article. (It’s page 79 of the book if you wanna go check it out.) Kat was flipping through the September 2012 issue of O — Oprah Winfrey’s monthly magazine — when she spotted this high-profile mistake on page 169:

Clearly there was one more step to be done with this photo, and that was to put in different text into the screen of the Blackberry before the page shipped to production/the printer. Somehow the editors missed it and it went out this way (at least in the digital edition).

So, two things to remember: You can never check your work too many times before the deadline, and yes, TK really is a thing. (BTW, I always answer phone calls with emails. I’m a rude guy, I guess.)

I am on several PAX Prime panels at the end of the month, but one is just about Critical Path. If you’ve read the book, you know there’s a sample review filled with newbie mistakes. Rather than just repeat that live, I’m working with a friend to create a second flawed sample review, which I will break down and edit live on stage, a bit at a time. This will be fresh content prepared just for PAX Prime. Afterwards, I will have a few books for sale and I’ll be happy to sign any you might bring with you.

How Not to Write a Game Review takes place Saturday September 1 at 4pm in the Raven Theatre. Come to Seattle and we’ll point out some glaring mistakes together.